How to Increase Screen Resolution on MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Whenever you buy one of the new MacBook laptops with Retina display, many do it in the hopes of having not just a richer display, but one with a larger resolution. However, the scaled resolutions that you actually get will be up to 1680 by 1050 for 13” MacBook Pross and 1920 by 1080 for 15” MacBook Pross, which can be disappointing for those who wanted more to fit on one screen. Fortunately, there is a solution, and it can be found by using a simple app.

Why You Would Want a Larger Resolution Screen

First, let’s look at a few reasons why you would want the native 2560 by 1600 that the 13” MacBook Pro with Retina or the 2880 by 1800 that the 15” MacBook Pro has to offer.

Spreadsheets

Those that work with spreadsheets know the frustration of not being able to see everything they want on one screen. The more of your spreadsheet you can see at a time, the more work you can get done at a quicker pace.

Screenshots

For those that capture screenshots for support requests, tutorials, and articles, another frustration is having to take two or three to get everything captured that you need to fully explain your issue. The larger your resolution is, the more you can include in one screen capture. The intended recipient of the screen capture can simply zoom in to the areas they need in one image as opposed to having to stitch together multiple images.

Double Monitor Simulation

Can’t get an extra monitor for your laptop? A larger screen resolution can mimic the effect of having two monitors by allowing you enough space on the screen to place items side by side, such as your browser window next to a Word document, one spreadsheet next to another, and so forth. This can help those who are translating documents, studying and taking notes, or doing research.

Virtual Machine Usage

If you still need to have access to a Windows machine from your MacBook Pro, then you can get it using virtual machines. If you’re transferring documents back and forth between your Mac and virtual Windows machine, you’ll need enough space to see your virtual machine and your Finder window. Having a larger screen resolution will allow you to comfortably use both.

How to Increase Your Screen Resolution

EasyRes is a $7.99 app that allows you to quickly utilize any resolution size you want to achieve. Once installed, you can access your resolution options in your menu bar.

Using this app, you can open a few files on your desktop, then preview how those files will look with different resolutions before choosing the one that is right for you. You can quickly switch back and forth between two resolutions when working on different projects to either allow you more on your screen or a larger view of the things you have on screen.

When you first launch the app, be sure to go to your preferences and tell it to automatically launch at startup. Otherwise, you will have to manually launch it after your MacBook has been shut down and restarted.

You can also edit the listing of resolution options to annotate the ones that you use most. For people such as web designers who like to test the look of their design on different screen sizes, maybe you will want to mark some as specific tablet emulators.

As you can see, this is the perfect app for multitaskers who want to get more out of their Retina display!